I got a tattoo of my own in my long absence. A large tribal design on my chest. However, one of the things that surprised me most is one of my Japanese friends actually got a kanji tattooed on his shoulder. He's a Nagasaki born Japanese native so it surprised me. For some reason, I have fallen under the impression that it's westerners that get kanji tattooed on them.

His tattoo is the single character 子. I would have gotten weird ideas if he didn't immediately tell me why. He was born in the year of the rat (so was I for that matter). Another thing that interested me is that nobody even said anything when he went back home and visited some onsen locations.

I find that sometimes, even when the person has a perfectly legible kanji tattooed on them, it still doesn't mean what they think it means. For example, my friend had a beautifully done kanji on her arm. It looked like real shoudo was put directly on her. She asked me what it meant, and I told her "princess" and she looked absolutely crestfallen. Apparently she had wanted something different, but I never found out what that was.

Wow, people who do that just tend to care about appearance. Because I happen to have a kanji tattoo on my ankle and it's absolutely beautiful, I know what they all mean and it's just how I wanted it to.